A quick PSU related question...

R

Resonance456

Geek Trainee
Hi all,

I am going to buy a new PSU soon, most likely Antec, Hiper or OCZ and it will probably be around 580W.

My question really is will there be any significant change in system performance if any?

Atm I have a 300W PSU that came as standard with my rig - the make is fairly standard. My Nvidia GeForce 7600GT requires a 350W PSU as minimum, yet it still works which is quite surprising.

I do not know much about PSU's but I feel my PSU is hindering the performance of my PC which is why I want to buy a new one. Also, I feel that it is not giving enough juice to my gfx card and as such it isn't working to its full potential.

Am I right in assuming that a new PSU will change all of this and increase my system performance?

Either way I will be getting a new PSU because frankly, 300W just isn't enough, nonetheless, it would be nice to know what benefits if any I will gain from purchasing a new one?

Thanks for any help in advance :D

P.S. I have a thread relating to advice on Soundcards - My on-board one is messing up and I need a decent new one, so any helps on what make/model to get and why would be much appreciated too.
 
hey guys, just a little PSU update...

I found 3 PSU's, I swear these are exactly the same lol - coucld someone just quickly check?

PCWorld

RLSupplies

Overclockers UK

If they are the same, I take it it will make no difference on which one to get other than the cheaper one of the lot! lol. If they are different, could you please reccomend which to get? Thanks.

One last thing, are these PSU's compatible with my PC and MOBO? My Mobo is an MSI K8MM-V

It can also be found in (i think) a little more detail here

Thanks very much for any help!
 
As you're aware, your computer requires electrical power. The basic idea of a PSU is to convert AC voltage to DC which the system uses. The wattage of a PSU reflects the total output across all rails, those primarily being +3.3V, +5V, and +12V.

Different components feed off a particular voltage rail. Right now, the CPU, PCIe video cards, and SATA drives feed off the 12V rail. Older CPU's, RAM, and AGP video cards feed off the 5V (CPU) or 3.3V.

A power supply will only provide (up to it's max) what is necessary. If a system only requires 200W, that's all it's going to provide, regardless of what the maximum output it can provide. As long as the demand isn't larger than what the PSU can provide on each rail, you won't run into problems.

If you do end up with a system that demands more than the PSU can provide, you're looking at trouble booting up and when the system is being stressed (gaming, folding, video editing). While you can get a hit of a slow down, it's going to be coupled with lockups or crashing rather than slowing down. Slow downs tend to occur when the CPU or video card is getting to hot and is dropping it's clock speed to cope, programs pop-up and use CPU cycles (anti-virus updates, for example), or the hard drive hasn't been defragged.

A PSU doesn't directly affect your performance. A higher wattage PSU gives more headroom for when the extra juice is required.

As far as standards, ATX is the main one. Other terms like E-ATX, or WTX are different, but the latest ATX power supplies have absorbed a lot of the features that these server/workstation-class motherboard/PSU formfactors had. BTX only applies to the motherboard layout, and is compatible with ATX PSU's.
Any ATX 2.03 PSU will have a 24-pin main ATX connector...although the last 4 pins are usually able to be split from the other 20, for compatibility with older 20-pin ATX motherboards.
You have a micro ATX (or mATX) motherboard, which is a slightly more compact variant of the ATX standard. You loose a little real estate which includes 2, possibly 3, expansion slots (or rather the room for), but the PSU standards remain the same.

The Hiper Type-R's (and I think Type-M) come in various colors, but the guts are the same.
 
Thank you very much for the help - much appreciated. From the PSU's I previously posted, would you recommend them for me? I.e. are they good and fully compatible with my mobo? I am planning to by one within the week.
 
The Hiper Type-R is used by a few people around here. For the money, it's a pretty decent unit from the good reviews, and you're not going to find a lot of competition in it's price range that isn't junk.
 
ok cool - i think i will get it then... but before i do, from my initial problems and reasons for getting a new PSU (as stated in the first post) would you reccomend me buying one?
 
I don't think it's causing slowdowns, but I do think it will hinder you with any sort of future upgrade. FSP is an exellent brand, but even so, you're only going to get so much out of a 300W PSU, regardless of how good it is.
 
Hey, just a little more help needed before I finalise my PSU buy...

I just found a new PSU which may be good for me, considering I am getting a new rig in a few months time - this PSU is and OCZ @ 520W and is only £45. It is not only well within my budget but also within my power supply requirement.

This is the OCZ PSU I found.

It seems to be very good, but as I mentioned before I do not know my PSU's very well. If some one could take a look at this and tell me if it is good and worth the money that would be great??!!
Btw, does this PSU work with an AGP 8x gfx card? (because it has a PCI-E dedicated connextion or whatnot)
Also, I would just like to know if it is once again compatible with my mobo?? (the link to my mobo should be in one of the above posts!).

Any quick and accurate help would be much appreciated! Thanks very much all!
 
I have the 450 version of that unit and it does the job powering my second box quite well.
 
Ok sweet man! Is it totally compatible with my mobo and gfx card? (i have an agp 8x gfx card). I dunno if my mbo is ATX 2.2 or 2.03 or what have you, so I do not know how compatible that PSU is??
 
It's 20+4 pin, meaning that the last 4 pins are removable. I have it powering a Chaintech VNF3-250 motherboard, which only has a 20-pin ATX connector, so it's compliant with ATX 2.03, which is backwards compatible with older ATX 2.x standards. In short, yes, it will work for you just fine.
 
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